Nation’s tax revenue rises 28 percent

By Amy Su / Staff reporter

Sat, Feb 09, 2013 - Page 13

The nation’s tax revenue increased 28.8 percent from a year earlier to NT$120.3 billion (US$4.04 billion) last month mainly due to a low base, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday.

Hsu Ray-lin (許瑞琳), deputy director of the finance ministry’s statistics department, attributed the sharp rise to the Lunar New Year effect — in this case, a lower comparison base because the annual holiday fell in January last year.

Since the same effect could result in a decline in tax revenue this month because of fewer working days, Hsu said the trend in tax revenue this year may be clearer by comparing data from the first two months together.

Revenue from business taxes showed the largest rise last month from a year earlier among all taxes, followed by the land value increment tax and the commodity tax, the ministry said in its monthly report.

Business tax revenue rose by NT$9.6 billion, or 25.5 percent, to NT$47.3 billion last month from a year earlier, the report said.

Revenue from the land value increment tax totaled NT$10.2 billion last month, up 89.1 percent from a year earlier, marking the highest level since March 2005, the data showed.

The revised data from the ministry also showed that tax revenue rose 1.8 percent from a year earlier to NT$1.797 trillion, but missed the ministry’s target of NT$1.823 trillion, a shortfall of NT$25.8 billion.